Chemicals burn contractor worker at Alcoa plant

An employee for a contractor was burned Thursday by chemicals in an accident at Alcoa, the communications and community affairs supervisor for Alcoa confirmed Saturday.

The incident follows a Sept. 9 accident that burned five employees in what is called the digestion area of the same Alcoa plant.

The worker who was injured Thursday suffered burns while in the precipitation area of the Point Comfort plant, the company's spokeswoman, Laurel Cahill, wrote in a press release.

The man was flown by helicopter to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Cahill wrote. His condition was not available Saturday.

The precipitation area recovers and classifies the dissolved alumina from the plant process liquid.

The plant's emergency response teams and Calhoun County emergency medical services responded to the call at 11:45 a.m.

How the contract worker was burned is under investigation. No one else was injured.

"We are deeply concerned any time someone is injured. Given the nature of this incident, Alcoa has made the necessary notification to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and the agency is participating in the incident investigation," Cahill wrote in the email.

Cahill declined to identify the contractor or the injured worker, citing the company's privacy rules.

"Alcoa takes incidents like these very seriously and will work closely with both the contractor involved as well as MSHA to determine what happened, identify the causal factors and determine what steps need to be taken to prevent a reoccurrence."